David Siskind | Sunday, 15 February 2026
So I went down to the Long Beach Casting Club yesterday where they hosted the SW Casting Championship. I was alerted to it by Kalyn Hoggard writing last week about his preparations in his regular FP, and was then tasked by Paul to introduce myself to Kalyn, Whitney Gould and Joel Phillips. So I packed my HT8 (for Whitney to try) and drove the overheating carro rojo to Long Beach Friday morning. Henry Mittel, Steve Rajeff, Chris Korich, and Rick Hartman were there competing as well. And others whose names I didn’t know but now will. I was suitably impressed.
I watched world-class casters throw their pointy loops, and listened to them talk about their craft and training. Spectators were a little scarce, mostly friends and teammates and, I assume, club members. LBCC provided a great casting pond with plenty of room for long backcasts and a yummy lunch. Being one of the few unfamiliar faces there I received a warm welcome from LBCC president Tom Olson who pitched the club enthusiastically. He was preaching to the choir. I think I’ll join.
I saw Platform Spey, !5’ Spey, Sea Trout and Trout Distance. The casting was great. My only regret was that I couldn’t stay for the accuracy competition. We’ll all have to wait for Kalyn to post the official results tomorrow.
There are Things I Know I Saw:
- Remarkably consistent and lovely backcasts
- Aggressive and late hauls
- Fancy footwork
- Aggressive and effortful scoring casts
- Collegiality among competitors - support, kindly coaching, offers of help, sharing equipment
And Things I Thought I Saw:
- Many, not all, casters pause after formation of D-Loop on speys - followed by a bit of a bump
- Frequent spey anchor placements significantly inside the line of trajectory to target - followed by further sliding into place on forward stroke
- Some timing and loop variability in the scoring casts of all competitors - not every loop rolls out, not every cast scores
- Some remarkable efforts including spey casts longer than 180’ and trout casts longer than 120.’
- Backcasts unrolled fully before ANY move forward.
New Things to Train::
- Experiment with late hauls - progressively delay until failure
- Foot work. Get something behind the stroke by moving my body and large muscles first. Experiment. Step into it.
- Experiment with aggressive hauls. Speed them up.
- Experiment with timing. Delay turn forward progressively until failure
- Buy an MED5 and work with it on nominal 4 wt through 10 wt rods. See what a fast sturdy taper brings.
All the competitors in distance competitions underline their rods. Paul has been urging me to try this for years but I never got around to it - didn’t have the heavy rods. Most use nominal 10 wt rods to cast the MED5. I’m not sure what they are doing with their spey lines and sea trout shooting lines but it looks like lines are lighter than nominal rod weight. So this morning I strung up my HT8 with my SA Amp Trout WF4. I was able to throw very very tight loops. Stopless casts were super pointy. Overall distance, I think, was still limited by relatively short back taper. Per my perception of the competitor consensus, I think the HT10 will be the best weapon. I’ll try that when the MED5 gets here.
Again, I was delighted by the Club’s hospitality and collegiality and thanks specifically to Whitney and Kalyn for their welcoming sociability even though they were competing. I would like to fish for Whitney’s Idaho steelies and Kalyn’s Wisconsin carp in the near future but next week I’m off to Acklins in the Bahamas for a six day fish. I’ve got new compression wading socks and, wearing them, should be sufficiently robust despite my unfortunate recent knee issues and resulting edema and should make it to the end without incident. Yay.
Cheers,
David Siskind